LOOKING BACK: Outgoing Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has seen a lot during his eight years leading the city. In 2018, Sacramento police fatally shot Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed Black man, in his grandparents’ backyard, prompting large protests. The Covid pandemic followed, and Sacramento — like other major California cities — experienced a spike in homelessness. Its homeless population tripled between 2017 and 2022, according to a federally-mandated count. Even so, Steinberg sees himself as a steadying force in a capital city where residents have “decided that we want to be a larger city with more creativity, more vitality, more place-making, more opportunity, more industry, more jobs and more to do.” He was elected mayor in 2016, following a long career in the California Legislature that included a stint as Senate president pro tem. He saw some early victories during his first term, when he was able to convince voters to renew a half-cent sales tax increase. Most recently, he touts development along Sacramento’s waterfront and railyard areas, which have long languished. “I will leave the job with the city with some very concrete, specific accomplishments,” Steinberg said. “But also, I think we've changed the arc of the city over time.” Steinberg shared some of his mayoral reflections — and what he might do next — as he prepares to leave office. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Your mayorship has extended across a wide range of events, including the pandemic and police shootings. What is your impression of what’s unfolded? It's been rich, and it's been very challenging. I was pro tem of the Senate during the worst recession in decades. My job, really, for four out of my six years as pro tem was to help the state dig out of terrible budget deficits ... Asking my caucus, especially, to vote for cuts that they didn't come to Sacramento to make. I sat out two years ... ran for mayor and won, and I had no expectation it was going to be easy in any way. But I could not have imagined that it would be just as challenging as those years leading the Senate through the recession. And the reasons are obvious. These last eight years between Covid — once-in-a-century pandemic — a rightful racial reckoning, a housing crisis that obviously was dominated by homelessness, unsheltered homelessness. In this form of government in Sacramento, the mayor has all the accountability and very little of the authority, which I knew going in. But it has been a very challenging time. The mayoral election has yet to be called. You endorsed Assemblymember Kevin McCarty. His opponent, Flojaune Cofer, ran on homelessness as a big part of her platform, and she was critical of the city's approach. You've faced off with District Attorney Thien Ho over homelessness, which continues to be a major issue. And in every major city in the state and many in the country. I think it all starts with the expectation. I never said that I would solve homelessness. I said we'd get 2,000 people off the streets. That's what we've gotten — according to Sac Steps Forward — between the city and county, about 25,000 people off the streets since 2016. And the single largest reduction in unsheltered homelessness in the state among any major area. But it's not fixed, and there's a lot more work to do. What I have found, though — you mentioned one of the mayoral candidates and the district attorney — is that this issue [has] obviously been politicized. And understandably, people are frustrated by it. In the end, the only thing that matters is the actual work, and that is to build more beds of all kinds, to provide more services to people, and yes, to ensure that there is compliance with the law. We can't have large encampments continue to grow in a city. It's not safe for the people living there, and it's not safe or healthy for the neighborhoods or the business corridors that often adjoin where these encampments are. But the standard cannot be for a city mayor, “has it been solved?” The standard must be, in my view, “has there been progress?” Prop 36 passed pretty easily. You're one of the few big city mayors to oppose it. It has been touted as kind of a cure-all for all these issues we're talking about right now. And so I'm curious what led you to oppose it, and why do you think so many other leaders supported it? I had no philosophical issue with the proposition. Because if you start from my place, which is that nobody should be out on the streets, I have no issue with using most any means imaginable ... to get people the help that they need. The reason I opposed it is because I've seen the pace of progress when it comes to building the programs and implementing the programs to provide more treatment for people with mental health and substance abuse needs … not enough of those services are going to the people who are the sickest of the sick out on our streets. I walk throughout the city, and I see somebody who obviously meets any definition of gravely disabled, and ask, why isn't that person getting the help that they need? … I look at all that, and I say, OK, now you're going to give somebody, quote, “a choice between jail and prison or getting treatment.” Where's the treatment? So now I think it's incumbent on the proponents to actually follow through and provide the treatment. Everyone wants to know what's next for you. There's talk of you running for attorney general. If it’s open, I would consider it. I’ve said that. Are there any other aspirations? Well, I'm eligible to go to the bench, to the judiciary. And so that's something I would think about. For the first time in my life, I'm choosing not to make a quick decision ... I still have the fire. I'm still curious, and I still read and I write. I have more to give, but I want to take a little bit of time and think about what that is, and consider that there might be other ways of doing it. IT’S TUESDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to lholden@politico.com.
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